Cuomo issues 154 budget line item vetoes

Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued 154 line item vetoes of legislative additions to the state budget on Thursday night.

Cuomo’s office said those vetoes include 13 reappropriations for items that had previously been fully paid out, 75 items that are more than seven years old for which no state funding has been disbursed over the most recent seven-year period, 58 appropriations related to functions the administration says already receive adequate funding within state agency operations and eight appropriations that the administration deemed to be unconstitutional because the purpose of a reappropriation was changed.

In some instances, changes to reappropriations deemed unconstitutional included the deletion of language that gives the governor’s budget director sign-off on certain spending.

Such executive powers were the source of friction during budget negotiations, though ultimately a deal was struck on who gets what power when it comes to making mid-year changes to the budget in the event of federal funding cuts. Under the deal, if there are cuts to Medicaid or other spending, the Division of Budget will propose a revision plan to the Legislature and state lawmakers would then get 90 days to pass an alternative plan, otherwise DOB’s plan would take effect.

3 Responses

Thank goodness Cuomo or someone in his Budget office is paying attention. This is how tax payers get both cheated and conned as well as paying for line items no longer in existence. Now, if someone would only do this to the Con Artists in the Legislature, especially their ‘per diems’ and ‘pork barrel’ projects, perhaps NYS taxes wouldn’t be so high. All of them need to be severely and constantly audited.

I agree barbbat. it’s the pork barrel spending that has to cease. I see not one line items vetoing that. You can look at this website to see all of the items listed. The Democrats in the state Assembly are awaiting final approval to allocate about $16.6 million in old, unspent member-item grants dating back to 2003, which are slated to go to select non-profits and local governments picked by individual lawmakers

Dump the $4.2 billion in pork spending, then the Gov can stop complaining about the tax burden she shoved off to the counties of $2.3 billion in Medicaid mandates and now may have to take them back Then to compound the myth states “NYS taxes are the lowest they have been in 50 years” The statement in itself is true, but what people miss is all that happened was the burden shifted to the counties. There was no lowering of taxes at all, just who collected it